It's been a while since I posted here but I now have a question for the mechanics out there (I have searched). The passenger side CV boot on my car finally split so I figured I would just order the parts and replace it my self. Since I know we don't all drive on the same side of the road, this is a left hand drive car and I'm trying to replace the CV joint on the engine side (not the transmission side). Also, the car is a '97 turbo with manual transmission.

Rather than trying to fix or rebuild the joint I just bought a new half shaft assembly. It came with male splined shafts at each end.

Thanks to the links on the site I was able to get everything taken apart with minimal fuss and only a few cc's of blood. Then I ran into the problem. The tripod joint on my car has a female coupler rather than the male part I received. Does this sound correct?

The site I bought the part from (couldn't buy it locally) said the driver and passenger side parts were the same. A male shaft on the tripod seems reasonable to me so I was surprised by the female coupler.

So my questions for those who have been there before me are:

Is the right side tripod supposed to have a female input?

Are the left and right parts interchangeable? The part I received certainly looks like it could work on the driver's/transmission side of the car. It certainly can't work on the passenger side.

Go here. Enlarge the picture to see how it all fits together. The female part you describe sounds like the companion flange that holds the tripod (a carrier bearing). It sounds like the assembly you got includes the intermediate shaft that goes into the transmission housing as this also ends with a splined shaft. (The intermediate shaft exits the housing and on its outer end holds the companion flange into which the tripod goes, and so on until you end with the outer CV joint and the short splined shaft that fits into the bearing in the hub). The right and left side assemblies are NOT interchangeable as the driver's side is less than half the length of the passenger side.

Well I got it fixed. I'm sending back the original part. The new part they sent had the outboard CV joint assembly, half shaft and the inner portion of the tripod joint. I reused the tripod race and all is well.

Thanks for the link. I looked at that before. It shows the engine side (passenger in the US) race having a male splined shaft. This is what I was originally sent but my passenger side tripod race had a female flange.